Fairfield police reopen 1991 missing child case after arrest of former pastor
FAIRFIELD -- Police are looking for connections between a former pastor who has confessed to kidnapping and murdering an 8-year-old in Pennsylvania nearly 50 years ago and a cold-case disappearance of a young girl from Fairfield in 1991.
Authorities are looking to see if the same man could be reported for both crimes.
The Fairfield Police Department confirms 83-year-old David Zandstra lived in Fairfield at the time a young girl went missing. Zandstra lived just a few minutes away from the victim.
A quaint Fairfield neighborhood is where four-year-old Amanda Nicole Campbell was last seen riding her bike to a friend's house. Known as Nikki, her case had a huge impact on families living in this area.
"I was shocked actually. I was really shocked," said a Fairfield resident who did not want to be identified.
She remembers the day Nikki disappeared just like it was yesterday. Neighbors went knocking door to door as the community united to find the little girl.
"It was a big deal, a very big deal. I'm sure if you went to any neighborhood in Fairfield, you would talk to people who remembers this," neighbor Kathleen Perez said.
"Everybody was scared, everybody was protective of their children. Everybody held them a little closer. A little tighter. Afraid that it was in our pretty new neighborhood and who was in it," added Karen Hardy.
Fairfield investigators are now talking with authorities in Pennsylvania where the murder of the 8-year-old Gretchen Harrington happened and Georgia, where David Zandstra currently lives, to see if he could be linked to Nikki's case.
Zandstra was charged this week with multiple offenses -- including criminal homicide and first-degree murder -- in the killing of Harrington in Marple Township in 1975.
He was a pastor at the Fairfield Christian Reformed Church at the time Nikki went missing. Neighbors are hoping this could be the lead that finally gives the family some closure.
"I can't even imagine what the family has gone through at that time and must be going through still now to this day," a neighbor said." Hardy agreed, "This family needs closure. It's been 32 years. They have the right to put their child to rest."
KPIX reached out to the family and were told the mother and Nikki's brother have moved out of state.